I haven’t written in a while, but the recent flurry of outrage about Miley Cyrus and the VMAs has gotten me worked up.

I watched the whole thing. Like a bad car accident, but I couldn’t look away. But I was confused. Why was everyone so mad? Didn’t they see Miley’s video? It was pretty much identical to her stage performance. What I don’t understand is why no one said a word about Robin Thicke (aside from his beetle juice inspired costume).

What. is. wrong. with. us????

Robin Thicke has an entire song being the hit of the summer which was basically about rape. About how no really means yes. With lines like “I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two”.

And yet I saw a mom the other day dancing away with her young daughter to it.

Marriage? Who needs that? Not Robin Thicke: “You don’t need no papers Hey, hey, hey\= That man is not your maker”. He just needs to have sex with you. That’s all ladies. And it is okay to be used that way, because he is humming a great tune.

I mean at one point Robin had someone else he was having sex with (“Yeah, I had a bitch, but she ain’t bad as you”), but it is a higher calling to be the “dirtier” girl. And after you “didn’t pick” Robin, he can take you anyways: “Do it like it hurt, like it hurt What you don’t like work? Baby can you breathe?”

Until of course you will give in because no really means yes, right?

And then the world is up in arms because Miley Cyrus personifies Robin Thicke’s line: “But you’re an animal, baby it’s in your nature”. We don’t want our girls to SEE someone acting like that, only to HEAR that doing this, acting like this, and letting men treat you like this is not only okay, but wonderful.

We pay money to have a man tell you it is good to have to give up any sort of purity when a he comes along. Even if he pressures you and has to drag it out of you.

My fight to raise my girls as good, well rounded people is more difficult every single day that someone feels it is okay to market this type of music.

Like this:

“Yesterday my Facebook Status was “I have been meeting with prominent secular psychologists, sociologists, marriage and divorce experts. I have asked the people working in the Catholic Offices that deal with annulments. I have spoken to therapists and priests. I have been asking them all what the number one issue marriages face today and the most common reason for breakdown. Without exception, the answer has been the same. Can you guess what it is? (I was really surprised)”

And then I left it open to see comments.

This morning I had 48 comments with everything being suggested from children, to jobs, to selfishness, to money.

It was very interesting.

I promised I would share what I found today, but I wanted to be sure I had enough space to show some sources and to be very, very clear. This is NOT my opinion. This is what is coming out of studies, this is what secular psychologists are reporting. One registered marriage therapist I spoke to said that in her practice, her clients have become almost exclusively in some way having to deal with this matter. When I asked an expert in marriage preparation programs in secular society, he reported the same thing. When I talk to priests who help couples, the same thing comes up.

When I started to really see a trend, I did the most logical next step. I started looking in published journal and medical articles, and have found papers. The recent studies are showing the same trend.

Pornography is ruining marriages. And in all its forms: sexting, social media, online access. The number of people suffering with full blown addictions are startling.

No lie. I was, honestly, shocked. I knew it was an issue in society. How could it not be? We are an openly sexual culture. But all of the information about what feels going and natural being good and natural seem to have been misleading us.

This isn’t meant to be a rant. Not meant to criticize. Just a shocking revelation I have been seeing the trend of (I work in the marriage industry).

One interesting thing is that sometimes the wife or husband (because it affects women too) doesn’t even realize pornography is the problem. Very often it presents as another issue, but then comes back to some sort of relationship with porn.

And sometimes the addiction is hidden.

But EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Psychologists, sociologists, priests, counselors, annulment issue people… The most common issue is surrounding porn. (The most common CAUSE of breakdown is communication failure)

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From: THE EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY ON INDIVIDUALS, MARRIAGE, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D. (http://www.frc.org/pornography-effects) – I recommend highly that people read this as it covers more comprehensively this issue than any other articles that I have seen.

“Two recent reports, one by the American Psychological Association on hyper-sexualized girls, and the other by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy on the pornographic content of phone texting among teenagers, make clear that the digital revolution is being used by younger and younger children to dismantle the barriers that channel sexuality into family life.

Pornography hurts adults, children, couples, families, and society. Among adolescents, pornography hinders the development of a healthy sexuality, and among adults, it distorts sexual attitudes and social realities. In families, pornography use leads to marital dissatisfaction, infidelity, separation, and divorce. Society at large is not immune to the effect of pornography. Child sex-offenders, for example, are often involved not only in the viewing, but also in the distribution, of pornography.”

“In a study on the effects of “cybersex”—a form of sexually explicit interaction between two people on the Internet—researchers found that more than half of those engaged in “cybersex” had lost interest in sexual intercourse, while one-third of their partners had lost interest as well, while in one-fifth of the couples both husband and wife or both partners had a significantly decreased interest in sexual intercourse. Stated differently, this study showed that only one-third of couples maintained an interest in sexual relations with one another when one partner was engaged in “cybersex.”

Prolonged exposure to pornography also fosters dissatisfaction with, and even distate for, a spouse’s affection. Cynical attitudes regarding love begin to emerge, and “superior sexual pleasures are thought attainable without affection toward partners.” These consequences hold for both men and women who have had prolonged exposure to pornography, with the decline in sexual happiness being primarily due to the growing dissatisfaction with the spouse’s normal sexual behavior.

Finally, pornography users increasingly see the institution of marriage as sexually confining, have diminished belief in the importance of marital faithfulness, and have increasing doubts about the value of marriage as an essential social institution and further doubts about its future viability. All this naturally diminishes the importance for them of having good family relations in their own families.”

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Pornography has now been shown to have similar biological influence as drug addiction. Neuorpathways are reformed around addiction. Our bodies are changed, our minds are changed. And until recently, society has been extolling the wondrous virtues of it. Only after years of the porn industry being the highest money maker in the world have the social scientists really started seeing the effects. And with it being so readily available and acceptable, I am worried it may be too late.

When I was in university, I recall in my abnormal psychology class reading a case study about a man who could only have an orgasm when he was around yellow boots. It was a complicated situation, and more complex than I could expand on here, but essentially, his therapist concluded that his need for this was due to the fact that when he was a teen, he would masturbate outside where there was a pair of boots. His brain made a physical, chemical reaction to them. Essentially, all of our brains grow to need what they are surrounded by in climax. Good news for faithful married people, but disastrous when external forms of lust become involved. We are created to “fall in love” (chemically) with what we gain sexual pleasure from.

I don’t know the answer to this trend. Maybe there is no answer, but I think it is so so important that we are aware of it. Aware of our personal actions. Aware of our choices. Aware of what our children are being exposed to. Sometimes what seems like innocent enjoyment has far greater impact than the five minutes of ‘pleasure’.